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For 11 years, the Gourmand World Media Awards have been the international Oscars for food and wine books.

You will meet there well known chefs coming from all countries, authors, journalists, publishers…..gathered all together for their passion: cooking.

Culinary Guides

Can restaurants be rated with objectivity?

Conference on May 19, 2006, presented by Tobias Nygren, from the Culinary Arts department of the University of Orebro, with Jean Luc Naret, Director of the Michelin Guides, and Michael Mölstad of The White Guide of Sweden.

Jean Luc Naret tells the launch of the first Michelin guide in the United-States, which covers New York.

The litle red guide, the Michelin Guide exists since 1900, and its rating system is well known:

One Star = to see

Two Stars = worth the detour

Three Stars = worth the trip

Today restaurants and hotels share more than 1500 Michelin stars in the world.

To guaranty the best possible content to its guides, Michelin has a team for each covered country. This is because a perfect knowledge of each country, its culture and its cuisine are necessary to evaluate a restaurant. The cuisines are so different from one country to another. Each entry in the guide is controlled every year, those with One Star are controlled two or three times, and those with Two or Three Stars are controlled twelve times a year.

How are restaurants judged in the Michelin Guide?

The five main criteria of the judgement are:

• The quality of the products
• How the flavours are kept and brought forward, how the food is cooked
• The personnality of the chef and how he expresses it through his dishes.
• The quality/price ratio
• The regularity over a full year

One inspector averages 260 meals a year and spends 160 nights in hotels.

The launch of the first Michelin Guide in the United States

The New York Michelin Guide sold more than 100.000 copies the first week. Other guides are coming: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, Boston,…. Similarly, Michelin is reflecting on the launch of guides for Asia.

The ambition of the Michelin Guides is to guaranty the same criteria of judgment on all covered countries. Two restaurants having the same number of stars in two different countries must offer the same quality experience.

The Difficulty of Culinary Guides

Making a quality culinary guide is not profitable even when selling 80.000 guides per year. It is above all a question of prestige and communication for the brand that finances it. The main beneficiaries are first the restaurants that are included!

Are internet interactive guides real competition for the guides?

There are three types of content about restaurants:

• Content written by journalists, culinary critics
• Content writen by private restaurant clients, generally regouped in internet sites.
• Content written by the teams of culinary guides, between the two above.

At Michelin, the letters from readers is taken into account, but it is not the main source of information. Moreover, there is well known facts, such as the sending of many negative letters when a restaurant gets its first Michelin star, often written by the same hand. For the happiness for one……

The famous Michelin Stars are given during a Star Meeting where all restaurants are reviewed with all inspectors present. If there is a doubt, for instance there are too many negative opinions about one restaurant, it is visited again by inspectors.

Michael Molstad states the objectivity issue in his criteria of the Swedish White Guide

First why and how do you create a culinary guide?

The interest of a culinary guide is :

• To rate a restaurant
• To bring clients to arestaurant by advertising their interest.
• To reward the quality of a restaurant.
• To influence culinary future and participate in the global increase of the quality of restaurants.

The steps in the creation of a restaurant guide are the following:

• An inventory of the universe of restaurants
• Choosing the good tasters. Professional cooks should not be chosen as they might focus on details, focus on the food, and not consider the global experience.
• Create a practical rating system
• Create the Right categories. For the Swedish White Guide they are:
• * International first class
• * National First Class
• * Great Class
• * High Level
• * Good Category
• * Good Address
• * Good Date

What is the rating system used by the White Guide in Sweden?

The main rating categories are:

Basic Service 1 to 10

Food  1 to 35

Drinks  1 to 15

Service 1 to 15

Environment 1 to 17

Atmosphere 1 to 8

Can the rating of a restaurant be objective?

Many factors can influence a rating:

• It might be a bad day for the inspector
• The number of visits to this place
• Can you rate in the same way a big restaurant and a more modest one?
• Is the place recent or has it been established a long time? Prejudice is difficult to avoid.
• Is it experimental or traditional cuisine?
• Do you have the necessary courage to give a bad rating to a well know chef?

In a world always more complicated, we need ratings.d However, complete objectivity does not exist, and maybe that is better! A meal is always a subjective experience, and it belongs to everyone to determine what he finds good or not. In the same way, everyone finally is inspired by the guide that corresponds the best to his taste.